by Jaid Black
Cam almost despised the fates that kept a warrior from being able to harbor any emotion toward females they were sexually intimate with, save that of their Sacred Mate. Mayhap emotion could make a tumble more lusty. ‘Twas going to cost Cam a fortune did he wish to purchase another bound servant to alleviate his boredom.
But then again, ‘twas no doubt best that his emotions could not become involved. The goddess in all her omnipotent wisdom had probably declared it so, that a nee’ka might never have to compete with a rival.
Cam exited his suite and strode toward the royal apartments, gifts for the High Queen and her hatchlings in his arms. He had meant to bring the presents when first he had returned from hunting, but being a recently promoted Commander, he had been too busy training with his squadron to find the time.
When Her Majesty opened the doors and smiled brightly up to him, Cam knew that waiting for his Sacred Mate would be worth it. He could still vividly recall the look of pure, unadulterated ecstasy that had passed over the High King’s face after filling the High Queen with his life-force during the last consummation feast. And this from a man so jaded, a warrior who owned over three hundred Kefas and three hundred more bound servants.
“Cam!” Kyra greeted him enthusiastically, having not seen him in over two months. “How are you? What’s that you’re holding?”
“’Tis gifts I brought back for you and the High Princesses.” Cam grinned down at the wee High Queen who looked radiant today in a translucent rouge qi’ka.
“That’s so thoughtful. You didn’t have to do that!” Kyra waved her arm toward the inside of the royal apartments. “Come on in.”
“Thank you.” Cam followed Kyra through the corridor that led into a game parlor, a chamber she no doubt spent a lot of time in now that she had three panis to see to. “I’ve yet to meet your youngest hatchling, Kara I believe it is?”
“Yeah.” Kyra threw a wry grin over her shoulder. “Zor has two pet names for her, ‘the hellion’ and ‘wee terror’. She chuckled. “Does that give you any hint as to how exhausted she makes me?”
Cam laughed good-naturedly. “Aye.” He shook his head as he continued to follow behind Kyra. “I hope wee Kara likes my gift. I’m a trite fearful of displeasing her now.”
Kyra giggled. “I’m sure she will.”
As it turned out, Cam didn’t have that particular worry to concern himself over, for Kara was fast asleep, apparently napping in her rooms. So for the next fifteen minutes, he passed out his gifts and enjoyed the feeling it gave him to see so many smiles.
Zora and Zara were thrilled with the holographic games he had purchased for them on Myrak, a planet lying between Tryston and Galis within Trek Mi Q’an airspace. He had also acquired them three new kazis apiece, a kazi being the conservative but colorful skirt and top that girl children wore until they had their come-outs at eighteen Yessat Years and were given a mazi.
A mazi had the see-through top of a qi’ka, but the protective skirt of the kazi. Qi’kas were forbidden until the girl became of claimable age at twenty and five Yessat years.
Kyra was equally thrilled with her gifts. For her, Cam brought back two bejeweled arm bracelets from Tron, as well as a basket filled with assorted sweet candies that a talented confectioner on Galis had concocted.
“These are wonderful,” Kyra murmured between a mouthful of migi. Her eyes rolled back into her head in bliss. “Just wonderful.”
“What’s this? Nothing for me?” Zor grinned at Cam as he strolled into the game parlor and held out his hands for his hatchlings to run into.
Zora and Zara took great delight in showing their papa all that Cam had purchased for them. “They are beautiful kazis for a certainty, my hearts. Mayhap you and Zara should save them for the celebrations during the moon-phasing.”
“Oh,” Kyra mumbled between a full mouth of candy, “I fowgot abowt that.”
“Aye.” Cam nodded. “’Tis but three months away, Your Majesty. Then the skies will turn to night and every of the seventeen moons will be visible from Sand City for four full Trystonni days.”
Zor clapped Cam on the back, turning the subject. “Congratulations on your promotion, Commander. If you keep proving yourself such a worthy hunter and leader, ‘tis my hope to make you a high lord or mayhap even a lesser king someday.”
Cam flushed awkwardly on his feet. “’Tis my hope as well,” he quietly admitted.
“Well,” Zor sighed, “I needs get to the training field. Where is Kara, nee’ka? Has she no kisses for me this morn?”
Kyra stood up as she swallowed down the remainder of her migi. “Leha said she woke up early and couldn’t fall back to sleep, so she’s already nap—ah wait.” She grinned. “Here comes the hellion now.”
Cam absently glanced toward the doors where a topless Leha was entering the chamber with the youngest Q’ana Tal, then glanced away just as quickly.
He did a double-take.
He sucked in his breath.
Cam’s eyes widened as he watched the High Queen pick up wee Kara and cradle her against her chest. He couldn’t believe it. He was simply stunned.
Cam stood there for what felt like hours to him, but was probably no more than several seconds, debating with himself over what he should do. And then finally, unable to resist the temptation of knowing what his future held, he scanned Kara’s tiny form until he located a small, bejeweled bracelet that dangled from her wrist.
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. He fixated all of his attention, all of his powers, on the summoning of the petite bracelet.
Cam heard the High Queen laughing as she kissed a giggling Kara. He heard Zora and Zara enthusing to Leha of their new treasures. He heard it all, yet it seemed a million miles away. As if in slow motion, every fiber of his being, every cell of his body, was fixated upon the chubby wrist of a wee High Princess. He was sweating. His breathing was choppy. His throat felt unbearably parched.
He sent out his summons.
The bracelet responded, unclasping and falling to the ground.
Cam closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. By the holy sands, it was true. How, he did not know. But it was true. In twenty and five Yessat years, the girl child would be a woman grown, and she would belong to him.
“By the goddess,” Zor murmured.
Cam’s gaze flew to the High King, the only other in the chamber who apparently now knew. His nostrils flaring, he reigned in his temper and regarded him. “I know I am common of birth,” he gritted out in a low, private tone, “yet not even a High King has the right to deny a warrior his true mate.” When Zor said nothing, merely continued to search his features, Cam inclined his head. “I mean no insolence, Your Majesty, yet will I claim her as is my right by the holy law in twenty and five Yessat years.”
Zor didn’t speak for a long, suspended moment that seemed to Cam to last an eternity. But finally, the High King murmured in low tones, “Then you will spend the next twenty and five years becoming a hunter who is elite even amongst the elite. I care not what the law says, for I will release my girl child to none but a lesser king.” His gaze flicked to Kara and then back to Cam. “Am I clear?”
Cam slowly inclined his head. “Aye, sire,” he murmured.
Zor nodded, taking a deep breath. He hadn’t thought to be faced with such a situation for many, many moon-risings to come. As much as he wasn’t ready to admit it, he did admire the younger warrior. Very few ever made it to the rank of Commander at all and to do so at such young years was no small feat. Cam would prove himself. Of this he was certain.
“You best be on your way, Commander.” Zor peered into Cam’s eyes. “I give you permission to give Kara your gifts if you so choose, but from this day forward your meetings will be limited.”
Cam had expected no less. Kara would be guarded from him even more vigilantly during the years between her come-out and the claiming. “Aye, sire.”
Taking a deep breath, Cam strode over to where the High Queen and her panis stood. He sm
iled down to Kyra. “Might I hold her but a moment?” he murmured respectfully.
Kyra’s eyebrows shot up. “Of course!” Handing her youngest over to the warrior, she grinned at her daughter. “Kara, be nice. This is Cam.”
Cam peered into the wee babe’s face, surveying her features. She would have hair the darkest of nights and eyes the glowing blue associated with the Q’an Tal bloodline. ‘Twas an odd shade of blue, pale and beautiful, as if it could see right through you and into your soul. “Hello Kara.” He smiled. “Mayhap you would like a few new kazis too?”
Kara’s pudgy little hands grabbed at either side of Cam’s face. She flashed him a two-toothed grin that caused him to chuckle. And then she did something that made him wonder at the goddess’ sense of humor.
Wee Kara kicked him in the man sac.
* * * * *
Zor, Kil, and Rem spoke not a word to each other as they surveyed the carnage around them. Women, children, guildsmen, traders, teachers, grandmothers, grandfathers…all dead. The whole of the sector gone, wiped out, completely annihilated, its remains even now incinerating to the ground.
Ty.
The rebel leader’s name had been etched in blood, carved into the chest of the sector’s high lord, who from the looks of him had been tortured long hours before succumbing to merciful death.
Ty.
The name was scrawled in blood against the barely budding breast of a young girl who had been brutally raped before death came to her.
Ty.
The name was etched in blood across the buttocks of a boy child who had been sodomized repeatedly, then left to die of his injuries.
Ty.
A holographic memory of him had been left behind. The sadistic man smiled venomously as the memory played over and over, the leader of the insurrectionists crossing his arms over his chest and laughing. “’Tis the Empress I now seek…‘Tis the Empress I now seek…’Tis the Empress I now seek…”
Kil heard Ty’s recorded boast from somewhere in the back of his mind, but paid it no heed. His every attention was focused upon the young girl, lying raped and murdered at his feet, her kazi torn to shreds.
So young. She had been so very young. And had she survived past twelve years, mayhap would have been a great beauty with warriors tripping over their feet to do the lass’s bidding.
Kil inhaled sharply, the sight of her wee broken body reminding him of another wee body he had stood over years past, just like this—unable to bring life back to her. Where their tiny mother Jana had at least known many precious years of marriage and child-bearing before meeting so gruesome a demise, this young girl child had not been given even that much reward.
Kil crouched to his knees and bent over the child’s body. Fighting back tears, he placed his hand over her face and gently, reverently, closed her eyes.
“’Tis the Empress I now seek…’Tis the Empress I now seek…”
Cam picked up the communicator that the rebels had left behind and disengaged it. Ty’s holographic memory faded instantaneously, leaving in its wake an eerie quiet. Walking stoically to where the High King stood, he sighed deeply, handing the disengaged communicator over to him. “I recognize this piece, sire.”
Zor took the instrument from Cam’s grasp and searched his features. “What say you?” he murmured. It didn’t seem respectful of his many dead colonists, people who had depended on him for their protection—people he had failed—to speak in anything above a hushed voice. Anything else would sound like bellowing in a graveyard to his ears.
“They were so certain of themselves this time, so eager to leave behind Ty’s memory, that they made a small, but significant tactical error.” At the Emperor’s raised brow, Cam hastened to explain. “This communicator is of Morak for a certainty.”
Zor could hear Kil stiffen from behind him. He sensed his brother’s approach before he heard him speak. “Let me see that, Commander.”
Zor handed the device over to his brother. “I have it,” he said softly, “not Cam.”
Kil investigated the communicator from every angle, turning it this way and that, inspecting every groove and indentation. Finally, he closed his eyes and sighed. Nostrils flaring, his hand gripped the communicator until his knuckles went white. “All along,” he bit out, “these murderous, sadistic thieves have been hiding away within the confines of Morak, mine own colony.”
Rem, who had come upon his brothers when first Cam had given his news, placed a hand gently on Kil’s shoulder. If it wasn’t for the blood bath surrounding them, the proof that Ty’s evilness knew no bounds, he could almost feel sorry for the traitor.
Cam was right…the rebel leader had made a grave tactical error.
Rem understood as readily as the others assembled, that squirreling himself away on Morak, Tryston’s dominant red moon, was the most hazardous mistake the murderer could have made. No finer hunter lived than Kil. Nor did a warrior live who despised Ty more. And now, the rebel leader had insulted the King of Morak with his daring. “We will take him,” Rem said quietly. “He will be ours by the next moon-rising.”
Kil smashed the communicator within his fist, an act of strength that caused the eyebrows of all who had witnessed it to shoot up in disbelief. “He will be mine,” Kil growled, stomping off toward his conveyance, “all mine.”
Zor watched Kil’s retreat with a sense of impending fate. Truly, the madman Ty had just sealed his own destiny. Turning to Rem, he inclined his head. “Call Dak. I would have Geris and Jana within the Palace of the Dunes anon.”
Rem nodded, then turned to do as he’d been instructed.
Zor stood quietly in place for a dragged out moment before shifting toward Cam and clapping him on the back. “Good work.” He scanned his face. “Keep it up.”
On the next moon-rising, the insurrectionists’ hiding place on Morak had been completely wiped out. Kil had seen to it personally, just as he’d vowed. Unfortunately, the ever-elusive Ty had managed to elude the ever-vigilant hunter once again.
But no matter. They would meet again. Of this Kil was certain.
Destiny had a way of working itself out. And Ty’s destiny, Kil reminded himself with grim satisfaction, was to die at his hands, the same as the Empress Jana had died at the rebel leader’s.
Chapter 33
Sporting black leather garb of her husband’s that she’d pilfered from the royal closet and taken in—a lot—to accommodate for her smaller size, Kyra tiptoed around the conveyance launching pad, ascertaining whether or not any warrior guardsmen lurked near. She was careful to rein in all of her emotions in the doing, ensuring that none of them would spill over and tip off Zor to her well-laid plans.
The coast was clear. Just as she’d known it would be this time of the day. Yesss.
Kyra turned on her communicator and signaled Geris. When her best friend’s holographic image appeared, she was pleased to note that Geris had also been able to raid Dak’s wardrobe. Not only that, but she had also taken the time to smear black camouflage paint below her eyes just as Kyra had. Why they had thought to do this, neither could say. The make-up just seemed to go well with the role of prison escapees. “The coast is clear,” Kyra whispered. “How are things at the hatch?”
“I just engaged it,” Geris whispered back. “I’m on my way to the launching pad as we speak.”
“Affirmative.” Kyra nodded, her expression serious. She felt every inch the secret operative preparing to outwit the enemy with a brilliant tactical maneuver. Her excitement was evident. They had even created pseudo names to call each other by. This was just too cool. “Over and out, Rambo.”
“Over and out, girl—I mean Commando.”
Kyra disengaged the communicator. It was time.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. Damn it.
Preparing to come up with a plausible excuse for her attire and for being caught creeping about the launching pad, Kyra whirled around and ended up colliding—thankfully—with none other than her best friend. Geris tried t
o steady her, but Kyra’s sharp turn caused both sets of their mammoth breasts to bounce off of each other, sending the women flying to the ground with an unceremonious thud.
“We’ll never pass as warriors,” Geris muttered as she and Kyra helped each other back to their feet.
Kyra signaled with her hand for Geris to follow behind her as she crept up the crystal launching pad’s steps to alight into the floating Q’ana Tal carriage. “You don’t know that for sure.”
“We have huge titties!” she whispered harshly. Geris waited until she was safely ensconced next to Kyra in the front seat of the conveyance before puckering her lips into a frown. “And compared to real warriors, we’re noticeably short.”
“Maybe people will just think we have growth deficiencies or something, kind of like Gary Coleman from Different Strokes, or that Webster kid.” She waved her hand dismissively. “As long as we look like them from a distance, we’ll be fine, Ger.”
Kyra placed her palm on the recognition scanner, inciting the carriage to lurch upwards from the launching pad and transcend the hatch. She clapped her hands together and grinned gleefully. “Here we go!”
Geris forgot her reservations long enough to get caught up in the moment. Just as Zor had done to Kyra, Dak hadn’t allowed her to leave the confines of whatever palace she was stowed away in either. Week after week of confinement with no end in sight was getting to her. “We did it!” She jumped up and down in her seat and laughed. “We really did it!”
“I know!”
Geris laughed for a few triumphant moments more before reality began to dawn somewhat. She bit her lip and nibbled on it. The two days Dak had grounded her from her woman’s joy for disobeying him last week were still fresh in her mind. Suddenly, she was a little apprehensive. “Are you sure we won’t get caught, girl?”
Kyra snorted, dismissing her best friend’s worry with another wave of her hand. “I’ve been watching the schedule at the launching pad for a solid month. Believe me, Ger, so long as we come back in exactly five hours, nobody will be the wiser.” She shrugged. “We slip back in and land while the patrolmen are switching shifts, change into our qi’kas, wipe the make-up off of our faces, and stroll back inside.”